Holidays at home with the Harper-haters

iPolitics Insights

Perhaps it’s just the rarified circles I travel in, but over the Christmas holidays I frequently found myself in the company of people who hate Stephen Harper.

When I say “hate”, I don’t mean these people are critical of Harper’s position on climate change and dislike the way he undermines officers of Parliament.

I mean frothing, fulminating, damn-his-eyes, face-contorting, mind-bending, apoplectic hate. (And they’re critical of his position on climate change and dislike the way he undermines officers of Parliament.)

Twitter is filled with such people, of course. It can still come as a surprise to find yourself serving them Glenfiddich in your living room.

I have had it explained to me in recent days how support for Harper exists solely because otherwise-decent folk have been hornswoggled by tax tricks and victimized by a supine press.

One normally sweet-natured, mild-mannered friend (who, with only a small change to his rigging, you might imagine as a United Church pastor) posted on Facebook that Harper is a “fascist”.

I had always associated fascists with death camps and disappearances in the night. But apparently, given half the chance Harper has had, they would also prevaricate on carbon pricing and frustrate the inquiries of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

“How could anyone ever vote for him?” it has been demanded of me (like I’m the one to ask), a question usually followed by a half-remembered litany of misdeeds cribbed from Lawrence Martin or Michael Harris.

I usually reply by saying that I could just as easily construct such a narrative for the Liberals. A decade in office and we never got the promised national childcare program — but we did get bloviation without action on Kyoto and brown envelopes of cash pushed across tables in seedy restaurants. How could anyone ever vote for them?

The longer you govern, the more decisions you make and the more people you piss off. Who would have imagined ten years ago that veterans would number among the Conservatives’ most blood-curdling critics?

And I can pull the same trick for the NDP if you want — even more succinctly. Watch this: Bob Rae.

But my Spock-like logic tends not to impress. In my lifetime (now a frighteningly large unit of measure) there have been four prime ministers who lasted a decade, or near enough: Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper. Except for Chrétien, they each eventually inspired the kind of visceral hatred that practically howled for the invention of social media.

Longevity itself is part of the phenomenon, of course. The longer you govern, the more decisions you make and the more people you piss off. Who would have imagined ten years ago that veterans would number among the Conservatives’ most blood-curdling critics?

There may be common causes for all this, such as the growing sense of helplessness among opposition voters as the years tick away, slowly, slowly, like a clock in a Bergman film. But the pathology of hatred for each prime minister is a little different.

With Trudeau, his towering self-regard was the key. “Why should I sell your wheat?” Grrr.

With Mulroney, it wasn’t just that he was a liar. It was the look of delight that flickered across his face as he lied. I remember one of my brothers — not otherwise given to expressions of homicidal feeling — telling the following joke. Q: Michael Wilson and Brian Mulroney are standing on a cliff. Who do you push off first? A: Michael Wilson. Business before pleasure.

Harper, of course, has a whiff of cruelty about him. It’s easy to imagine him as a hockey dad — the kind who gets on the executive of the association and then screws everyone else out of the best ice-time.

I have often wondered why Chrétien never attracted quite the same loathing as the others. Was it his stumblebum Everyman act? I mean, who among us hasn’t felt like strangling a wingnut when presented with the opportunity?

Mostly I think it was because, throughout his prime ministerial career, he was beset by a pack of enraged Martin Terriers. He could kick and kick but the furious little animals just never let up. A metaphor for life, really.

In the tragicomic coda to the Chrétien epic, the snarling beasties finally brought the big man down, then raced through the streets yapping until they had to be exterminated.

And so it goes. It’s the start of an election year, and I know you want a takeaway from all this, so here it is:

Beware, young Justin. Even Tony Blair was likeable … once.

PaulAdams is associate professor of journalism at Carleton and has taught political science at the University of Manitoba. He is a veteran of the CBC, the Globe and Mail and EKOS Research. His book Power Trap explores the dilemma of Canada’s opposition parties.

Follow Paul Adams on Twitter @padams29

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